On February 11, a meeting dedicated to the unified action plan titled "Azerbaijan's new digital architecture" was held under the chairmanship of President Ilham Aliyev.
At the meeting, Minister of Digital Development and Transport Rashad Nabiyev stated that the digital economy is already surpassing the traditional economy worldwide, and it is expected that artificial intelligence will create an additional value of approximately 16 trillion US dollars globally by 2030.
So what could be Azerbaijan's share here? Is it possible to estimate approximately the additional value artificial intelligence could generate in Azerbaijan by 2030?
Medianews.az asked this question and former Minister of Finance, Chairman of the "Economics" International Economic Research Association, Doctor of Economics, Professor Fikrat Yusifov stated that the amount of additional value artificial intelligence could generate in Azerbaijan by 2030 will depend on the speed with which this field integrates into the country's economy and life as a whole: "Today the rate of development of new technologies worldwide is very high. Governments are already forced to think about ways to solve the unemployment problem caused by artificial intelligence. For example, one robot can perform the same job as 10 specialists in an institution. This means that, at best, 9 of these specialists, or perhaps all of them, will lose their jobs. Perhaps one specialist will remain employed to oversee live monitoring of the processes.
In this way, an army of thousands or millions of unemployed people could arise in each country. For this reason, in some developed countries, governments, not considering themselves ready for such a situation, advocate for some slowing down of processes related to artificial intelligence.
As for Azerbaijan, we cannot lag behind these ongoing global processes. That is why our head of state and government are paying such great attention to solving problems within the framework of Azerbaijan's new digital architecture."
Economist Natiq Jafarli Medianews.az said that it is currently difficult to estimate the additional value artificial intelligence could create in Azerbaijan in the coming years: "Because infrastructure still needs to be built. The effectiveness of the infrastructure must be measured.
It is commendable that Azerbaijan is rapidly entering this field and taking certain steps. Our country has serious agreements with the United States in this area. New contracts related to artificial intelligence and the placement of databases in this area are expected to be signed in Azerbaijan by May. However, it is difficult to give specific figures about the additional value all these will create in our economy at this point. Because this issue will depend on the effectiveness and volume of steps to be taken ahead. It is praiseworthy that Azerbaijan is trying to find its place in this trend. Let us hope that the steps taken will also have positive effects and impulses on the Azerbaijani economy."
So what steps should be taken for artificial intelligence to generate sufficient additional value and to be rapidly integrated into the country's economy in Azerbaijan?
ICT expert Ilkin Mammadkarimov in an interview with Medianews.az emphasized that for artificial intelligence to create real additional value in Azerbaijan, three main directions are important: "First, the digitalization of databases (data) in both the public and private sectors must be accelerated because artificial intelligence operates on data.
Second, personnel training in programming, data analytics, and artificial intelligence must be strengthened in universities and vocational education.
Third, financial and tax incentives must be provided to the startup ecosystem to create local technology companies. Otherwise, there remains the risk of becoming a country that only uses artificial intelligence as a user market, not as a user itself."
Nailə Qasımova,
Medianews.az
Note: The article was prepared on the topic "Development of Information and Communication Technologies" with financial support from the Media Development Agency of the Republic of Azerbaijan and in accordance with the competition conditions.
